Competitive Proposals to Special Interests

We consider electoral competition between two political candidates. Each can target private benefits to some groups. A candidate has an incentive to offer high benefits in the initial period, to deter the other candidate from offering yet higher benefits to the same group in a later period. We describe the equilibrium strategies of the candidates, showing that candidates will intend to target different groups, that groups targeted in the initial period gain larger benefits than groups targeted later, and that the benefits to special interests vary with their number and size.